When the Press Says “Fiery” It Means “Insane”

The one person who hasn’t been called “fiery” or “firebrand” lately is Robert Kennedy Jr. I find this omission puzzling, given that Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary practically stepped out of a textbook on abnormal psychology: whale-beheader, dead-bear fancier, sex diarist, etc. And that’s before we plumb RFK Jr.’s novel opinions against vaccines and fluoridation. Maybe the press feels squeamish about the worm that ate part of Kennedy’s brain. But they don’t come much fierier.

Some might object that fiery and firebrand sound like compliments (as euphemisms often do). Who wouldn’t like to be fiery? The term summons mental images of charismatic preachers and warriors for social justice, like John L. Lewis or Martin Luther King Jr. Once in a while the mainstream media will use “fiery” to describe some genuinely righteous soul or other. In 2003, for instance, CBS News reported that the former South African President Nelson Mandela delivered a “fiery speech” denouncing President George W. Bush’s preparations for war in Iraq. Two decades later, most agree Mandela was the intelligent and sane one in that disagreement and that Bush, under the spell of Vice President Dick Cheney and his own childish urge to best his father, was a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

Usually, though, when a mainstream outlet calls somebody “fiery,” the reporter is sending a coded message. “This person is dangerous,” the reporter is saying, “unable to govern himself, much less the country.” If the fiery person in question is a Cabinet nominee, fiery may also convey that this person is very likely un-confirmable, even in a Republican-controlled Senate (though Stefanik and Noem probably won’t have that problem). Fiery politicians know that fiery is code for nutter, but they don’t usually complain. I guess they figure the word will sound like praise to the great mass of voters, who anyway don’t follow the news. (Demagogue or monster might filter down.)